RAAL-requisite SR1a Has Landed

[jcbenten]

8 hours ago, TubeLover said:

Nice list. Though, while I greatly respect Rogue for making quality products at reasonable prices in the US, I'm not sure I would be looking to pair that combination.

 

The more powerful Manley's are certainly worth a try. And I would never pass on a chance to try Nagra gear. Shindo is absolutely wonderful stuff but I wasn't aware they produced anything remotely powerful enough for the RAAL's? 

 

JC

 

 

I do not know about the Shindo.  It is a brand I put in the same space as Audio Note Japan even though I do not know all the aspects of tubes or the brands.  I do not recall seeing the name mentioned on this website so when Chris asked for ideas I listed ones I would be interested in reading  his observations.

[TubeLover]

2 hours ago, ted_b said:

So I am continuing to go slowly, mainly due to gremlins and other pests (Roon clients can see my Roonserver but can't seem to access it; I can't find BOTH sets of my audiophile grade rca cables in order to set up Microzotl as tubed preamp, etc) but now have SU-1 running (powered by LPS1), JS-2 powering the Startech hdd enclosure and USB card, and continue to drag-n-drop playlists into HQPlayer 3.20.2 (old but works).  Still single box Win 10 but allows me to develop a baseline...my initial goal.

 

Third day conclusions: once I got the hang (pun intended) of the RAAL ear/head positioning, and got the system warmed up for about 60+ hours I can honestly say that these headphones are not very good headphones.........but they are phenomenal little ribbon speakers hanging off my head!!!  That's what they sound like...tiny Apogees strapped to my head!  Amazing, even with the somewhat clinical Schiit Jot-R amp.  Oh, and the dynamics have shown up too....VERY nice.  I can't wait for my tubed pre to add a little color and soul to the mix. 

I'm with you Ted. I spent many years seriously involved with headphones, and have never thought of the RAAL's as headphones from the first time I heard them.. I tend to refer to them as "extreme nearfield speakers". As you said, they are amazing little full range ribbon speakers that just happen to be hanging on your head. I'm very interested in your upcoming comments once you get the Micro ZOTL in the mix.

 

JC

[TubeLover]

1 hour ago, jcbenten said:

I do not know about the Shindo.  It is a brand I put in the same space as Audio Note Japan even though I do not know all the aspects of tubes or the brands.  I do not recall seeing the name mentioned on this website so when Chris asked for ideas I listed ones I would be interested in reading  his observations.

No worries, Shindo is simply superb stuff, they have simply never made anything that could even begin to power the RAAL's. 

 

JC

[TubeLover]

2 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Agreed. 
 

Once the world is right side up, it’s game on :~)

Chris, I'll be very interested in your thoughts after you hear his new, Susvara, Pacific, custom amp  "Grand Canyon System"! 

 

JC

[jcbenten]

7 hours ago, TubeLover said:

No worries, Shindo is simply superb stuff, they have simply never made anything that could even begin to power the RAAL's. 

 

JC

Bummer...20 wpc was the biggest I saw on the website.

 

Well there are always these but Chris will need the piano movers: https://www.vtl.com/products/power-amplifiers/monoblock-amplifiers/siegfried-series-ii-reference-monoblock/

 

I remember back when I was searching for a system, 20+ years ago, that there used to be a tube company that had tube amps that covered the floor...literally...huge setups.  I think they were French...Joule-Electra(?) but JE is no longer around.  But I may be mis-remembering the name.

[davide256]

this conversation is really making me picture mad scientists seeking even greater highly electrified headsets

 

[ShawnC]

Thinking out loud here, would it be wise not to listen to these headphones during an electrical storm.  Or a big ass thunderstorm. I’ve got a great view of both downtown St. Paul. And Minneapolis and watch storms roll in an hour away while listening to music or watching tv.  I can just imagine a lightning strike and having my head vaporize 🤯

[TubeLover]

40 minutes ago, ShawnC said:

Thinking out loud here, would it be wise not to listen to these headphones during an electrical storm.  Or a big ass thunderstorm. I’ve got a great view of both downtown St. Paul. And Minneapolis and watch storms roll in an hour away while listening to music or watching tv.  I can just imagine a lightning strike and having my head vaporize 🤯

Good idea, but I won't even turn on my audio system when there are storms about to take place. Same for my video stuff. Just not worth the risk of damage due to something even as small as a power blip. . 

 

JC

[ted_b]

It has been unfair of me to demo/review these RAAL SP1as as I relearn the ability to be an audiophile.    It's been over 2 years since I had my system up and running, due to the move across the country (and various time-sensitive home projects, not the least of which is having my lower level audio room built...it's about 40-50% now).  I have found that using these RAALs has exposed my atrophied listening skills, let alone my atrophied audio troubleshooting instincts, etc.  Don't get me wrong, I've been listening to music, but either in my car, via bluetooth on dog walks or via Google Home devices. 

 

So...with all those caveats I am here to tell you that the wait, although not "worth it", was really revelatory!!  These ear speakers are truly astonishing in their musical chops, their ability to create a sense of two channel state-of-the-art speaker listening inside and around my head.  And the word, revelatory, is a dual-sided one.  As in many things audiophile, to reveal is to discover.  And to discover is to create more and more options, more and more decisions, more and more highlights (and some lowlights) in one's system. 

 

First, the RAAL's themselves: they are full-range ribbon speakers (as full-range as one can get without bass enclosures) that are capable of transducing tonality, timbre, depth, speed, dynamics and the subtlties of harmonics as good as anything you've heard.....given the right equipment in front of them.  My 2+ year old system choices were made with the end result being fed to Aerial Acoustic 20T V2s in a room in NE Ohio where subatntial acoustic treatment and speaker positioning created an amzing sense of magic.  Now, some 28 months later, those decisions are logically, probably, not teh same ones I'd use today....but that is the baseline.  For example, I am still using HQPlayer 3.20.2 on a Windows 10 i7 6700k server machine, sending either upsampled 352.8/384k PCM or DSD512 (with older modulators) to my Holo Spring dac.  I've no time right now to change any of that, until I change out the OS (coming), so I am evaluating with some portion of one hand tied behind my back.

 

The direct-amp Schiit Jotunheim-R (aka Jot-R) is the first amp I am trying with the RAALS and that amp cost a whopping $798.  In addition, it doesn't use the interface box (hence the term "direct") that most are using with their more standard integrated amps.  And I did not buy the interface box, so my options are limited.  That being said, the Jot-R allowed me to flex my audiophile listening for the first time in 28 months, and for that I am eternally grateful; you see this $798 amp is that good to allow me to listen to the music, and both get over the RAAL learning curve as well as relearn how to settle in to serious listening.

 

But...the Jot-R needed some seasoning for my tastes, and although I have not found all my fave audiophile cabling, I was able to scrape together a nice recipe of Microzotl S tube preamp, some tube rolling, and enough MG Audio cabling..all in front of the Jot-R-as-power-amp (with volume pot set to approx 3 o'clock......anything higher created an overdriven set of noises and crackles that let me know we had some incompatibilities afoot...I've emailed Schiit to confirm my findings). 

 

So, if I have one basic fundamental about the RAALs it is this: their ribbons need tubes to truly sing!!  A conclusion met by most of this threads users already. 

Another neat fundamental about the RAALS: their ability to swivel about on one's head makes them a perfect OCD audiophile tool...hell, one could change their toe-out to suit any and every track played!! Yikes.    I have slight 8k tinnitus in my left ear and their toe-out adjustments makes balancing soundstage a simple trick.

 

These fundamental findings are only a few days old, so my journey with these ear speakers is just beginning.  But put on the 24/192 of the late great Charlie Haden's soft duo with Antonio Forcione (Heartplay) and fire up track 1, Anna, and you'll realize how wonderfully these ribbons and the right tube bloom combine to make freaking beautiful music together.  I can't imagine this timbre in many headphone combinations (but then I am not a headphone guy...so my baseline are the Aerials..and these RAALS sound like them at a tenth the MSRP).

Or get a little crazier and fire up the bizarre Mitchell Froom/David Hidalgo techno-Hispanic combo that created two albums (more like demo tapes) under the name The Latin Playboys.  A fave is from the self titled-album, a track called New Zandu.  A headphone track if there ever was one, but done so nicely on the RAALs that you wish they had buckled down and created a real legacy with this set of musicians and engineers, instead of a couple of throw-away cds that have nuggets but no real long term sense of either Los Lobos or Froom's techno-goodies from the likes of Suzanne Vega and others. 

That revelatory feature can show its other side easily, depending on equipment or, frankly, average recording sq.  And it's this aspect that has me worried about my first goal: to use this time to not only get musical with the RAALs but also begin to build my Colorado-version of the system recipe.  I'm hoping that the decisions I make in front of these wonderful ear speakers will carry over to my audio room and my Aerial 20Ts (and their power amps, etc)...let alone to the new room acoustics (which we are paying PLENTY of attention to, while building).  So, I will venture forward slowly and methodically...but thanks to Chris, Jeff (tubelover) and others here I now have a huge smile as I venture forward.

 

Stay tuned. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

21 minutes ago, ted_b said:

It has been unfair of me to demo/review these RAAL SP1as as I relearn the ability to be an audiophile.    It's been over 2 years since I had my system up and running, due to the move across the country (and various time-sensitive home projects, not the least of which is having my lower level audio room built...it's about 40-50% now).  I have found that using these RAALs has exposed my atrophied listening skills, let alone my atrophied audio troubleshooting instincts, etc.  Don't get me wrong, I've been listening to music, but either in my car, via bluetooth on dog walks or via Google Home devices. 

 

So...with all those caveats I am here to tell you that the wait, although not "worth it", was really revelatory!!  These ear speakers are truly astonishing in their musical chops, their ability to create a sense of two channel state-of-the-art speaker listening inside and around my head.  And the word, revelatory, is a dual-sided one.  As in many things audiophile, to reveal is to discover.  And to discover is to create more and more options, more and more decisions, more and more highlights (and some lowlights) in one's system. 

 

First, the RAAL's themselves: they are full-range ribbon speakers (as full-range as one can get without bass enclosures) that are capable of transducing tonality, timbre, depth, speed, dynamics and the subtlties of harmonics as good as anything you've heard.....given the right equipment in front of them.  My 2+ year old system choices were made with the end result being fed to Aerial Acoustic 20T V2s in a room in NE Ohio where subatntial acoustic treatment and speaker positioning created an amzing sense of magic.  Now, some 28 months later, those decisions are logically, probably, not teh same ones I'd use today....but that is the baseline.  For example, I am still using HQPlayer 3.20.2 on a Windows 10 i7 6700k server machine, sending either upsampled 352.8/384k PCM or DSD512 (with older modulators) to my Holo Spring dac.  I've no time right now to change any of that, until I change out the OS (coming), so I am evaluating with some portion of one hand tied behind my back.

 

The direct-amp Schiit Jotunheim-R (aka Jot-R) is the first amp I am trying with the RAALS and that amp cost a whopping $798.  In addition, it doesn't use the interface box (hence the term "direct") that most are using with their more standard integrated amps.  And I did not buy the interface box, so my options are limited.  That being said, the Jot-R allowed me to flex my audiophile listening for the first time in 28 months, and for that I am eternally grateful; you see this $798 amp is that good to allow me to listen to the music, and both get over the RAAL learning curve as well as relearn how to settle in to serious listening.

 

But...the Jot-R needed some seasoning for my tastes, and although I have not found all my fave audiophile cabling, I was able to scrape together a nice recipe of Microzotl S tube preamp, some tube rolling, and enough MG Audio cabling..all in front of the Jot-R-as-power-amp (with volume pot set to approx 3 o'clock......anything higher created an overdriven set of noises and crackles that let me know we had some incompatibilities afoot...I've emailed Schiit to confirm my findings). 

 

So, if I have one basic fundamental about the RAALs it is this: their ribbons need tubes to truly sing!!  A conclusion met by most of this threads users already. 

Another neat fundamental about the RAALS: their ability to swivel about on one's head makes them a perfect OCD audiophile tool...hell, one could change their toe-out to suit any and every track played!! Yikes.    I have slight 8k tinnitus in my left ear and their toe-out adjustments makes balancing soundstage a simple trick.

 

These fundamental findings are only a few days old, so my journey with these ear speakers is just beginning.  But put on the 24/192 of the late great Charlie Haden's soft duo with Antonio Forcione (Heartplay) and fire up track 1, Anna, and you'll realize how wonderfully these ribbons and the right tube bloom combine to make freaking beautiful music together.  I can't imagine this timbre in many headphone combinations (but then I am not a headphone guy...so my baseline are the Aerials..and these RAALS sound like them at a tenth the MSRP).

Or get a little crazier and fire up the bizarre Mitchell Froom/David Hidalgo techno-Hispanic combo that created two albums (more like demo tapes) under the name The Latin Playboys.  A fave is from the self titled-album, a track called New Zandu.  A headphone track if there ever was one, but done so nicely on the RAALs that you wish they had buckled down and created a real legacy with this set of musicians and engineers, instead of a couple of throw-away cds that have nuggets but no real long term sense of either Los Lobos or Froom's techno-goodies from the likes of Suzanne Vega and others. 

That revelatory feature can show its other side easily, depending on equipment or, frankly, average recording sq.  And it's this aspect that has me worried about my first goal: to use this time to not only get musical with the RAALs but also begin to build my Colorado-version of the system recipe.  I'm hoping that the decisions I make in front of these wonderful ear speakers will carry over to my audio room and my Aerial 20Ts (and their power amps, etc)...let alone to the new room acoustics (which we are paying PLENTY of attention to, while building).  So, I will venture forward slowly and methodically...but thanks to Chris, Jeff (tubelover) and others here I now have a huge smile as I venture forward.

 

Stay tuned. 

Love it Ted. The RAAL road only gets better. 

[sandyk]

On ‎5‎/‎12‎/‎2020 at 6:59 AM, austinpop said:

 

Chris, I'm really curious to know if RAAL's HSA-1A direct drive amp competes with the best you've achieved with the ARC (or PASS 😎) through the amplifier interface box.

 

Is the HSA-1A on your list?

 

 Surely the amplifier interface box contains step down transformers as virtually all Vacuum Tube based amplifiers are incapable of directly driving such a low impedance load ? This also suggest the possibility that high quality Solid State amplifiers may do even better if they also used suitably designed step down transformers in an interface box.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

17 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 Surely the amplifier interface box contains step down transformers as virtually all Vacuum Tube based amplifiers are incapable of directly driving such a low impedance load ? This also suggest the possibility that high quality Solid State amplifiers may do even better if they also used suitably designed step down transformers in an interface box.

 

The interface box presents a 6 ohm load.

[sandyk]

16 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

The interface box presents a 6 ohm load.

 In which case it must be using a Step Down transformer, and the SQ should be entirely dependent on the quality of the amplifier, whether VT or SS, and personal preferences.

"The RAAL ribbon's natural impedance is a near-dead-short 0.018 ohm." 

 

[TubeLover]

4 hours ago, ted_b said:

It has been unfair of me to demo/review these RAAL SP1as as I relearn the ability to be an audiophile.    It's been over 2 years since I had my system up and running, due to the move across the country (and various time-sensitive home projects, not the least of which is having my lower level audio room built...it's about 40-50% now).  I have found that using these RAALs has exposed my atrophied listening skills, let alone my atrophied audio troubleshooting instincts, etc.  Don't get me wrong, I've been listening to music, but either in my car, via bluetooth on dog walks or via Google Home devices. 

 

So...with all those caveats I am here to tell you that the wait, although not "worth it", was really revelatory!!  These ear speakers are truly astonishing in their musical chops, their ability to create a sense of two channel state-of-the-art speaker listening inside and around my head.  And the word, revelatory, is a dual-sided one.  As in many things audiophile, to reveal is to discover.  And to discover is to create more and more options, more and more decisions, more and more highlights (and some lowlights) in one's system. 

 

First, the RAAL's themselves: they are full-range ribbon speakers (as full-range as one can get without bass enclosures) that are capable of transducing tonality, timbre, depth, speed, dynamics and the subtlties of harmonics as good as anything you've heard.....given the right equipment in front of them.  My 2+ year old system choices were made with the end result being fed to Aerial Acoustic 20T V2s in a room in NE Ohio where subatntial acoustic treatment and speaker positioning created an amzing sense of magic.  Now, some 28 months later, those decisions are logically, probably, not teh same ones I'd use today....but that is the baseline.  For example, I am still using HQPlayer 3.20.2 on a Windows 10 i7 6700k server machine, sending either upsampled 352.8/384k PCM or DSD512 (with older modulators) to my Holo Spring dac.  I've no time right now to change any of that, until I change out the OS (coming), so I am evaluating with some portion of one hand tied behind my back.

 

The direct-amp Schiit Jotunheim-R (aka Jot-R) is the first amp I am trying with the RAALS and that amp cost a whopping $798.  In addition, it doesn't use the interface box (hence the term "direct") that most are using with their more standard integrated amps.  And I did not buy the interface box, so my options are limited.  That being said, the Jot-R allowed me to flex my audiophile listening for the first time in 28 months, and for that I am eternally grateful; you see this $798 amp is that good to allow me to listen to the music, and both get over the RAAL learning curve as well as relearn how to settle in to serious listening.

 

But...the Jot-R needed some seasoning for my tastes, and although I have not found all my fave audiophile cabling, I was able to scrape together a nice recipe of Microzotl S tube preamp, some tube rolling, and enough MG Audio cabling..all in front of the Jot-R-as-power-amp (with volume pot set to approx 3 o'clock......anything higher created an overdriven set of noises and crackles that let me know we had some incompatibilities afoot...I've emailed Schiit to confirm my findings). 

 

So, if I have one basic fundamental about the RAALs it is this: their ribbons need tubes to truly sing!!  A conclusion met by most of this threads users already. 

Another neat fundamental about the RAALS: their ability to swivel about on one's head makes them a perfect OCD audiophile tool...hell, one could change their toe-out to suit any and every track played!! Yikes.    I have slight 8k tinnitus in my left ear and their toe-out adjustments makes balancing soundstage a simple trick.

 

These fundamental findings are only a few days old, so my journey with these ear speakers is just beginning.  But put on the 24/192 of the late great Charlie Haden's soft duo with Antonio Forcione (Heartplay) and fire up track 1, Anna, and you'll realize how wonderfully these ribbons and the right tube bloom combine to make freaking beautiful music together.  I can't imagine this timbre in many headphone combinations (but then I am not a headphone guy...so my baseline are the Aerials..and these RAALS sound like them at a tenth the MSRP).

Or get a little crazier and fire up the bizarre Mitchell Froom/David Hidalgo techno-Hispanic combo that created two albums (more like demo tapes) under the name The Latin Playboys.  A fave is from the self titled-album, a track called New Zandu.  A headphone track if there ever was one, but done so nicely on the RAALs that you wish they had buckled down and created a real legacy with this set of musicians and engineers, instead of a couple of throw-away cds that have nuggets but no real long term sense of either Los Lobos or Froom's techno-goodies from the likes of Suzanne Vega and others. 

That revelatory feature can show its other side easily, depending on equipment or, frankly, average recording sq.  And it's this aspect that has me worried about my first goal: to use this time to not only get musical with the RAALs but also begin to build my Colorado-version of the system recipe.  I'm hoping that the decisions I make in front of these wonderful ear speakers will carry over to my audio room and my Aerial 20Ts (and their power amps, etc)...let alone to the new room acoustics (which we are paying PLENTY of attention to, while building).  So, I will venture forward slowly and methodically...but thanks to Chris, Jeff (tubelover) and others here I now have a huge smile as I venture forward.

 

Stay tuned. 

Very glad you've been able to find your way back to real audio again, Ted, with the RAAL's, after so long.  Everything you are saying seems spot on. Enjoy the journey. 

 

JC

[fas42]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

 In which case it must be using a Step Down transformer, and the SQ should be entirely dependent on the quality of the amplifier, whether VT or SS, and personal preferences.

"The RAAL ribbon's natural impedance is a near-dead-short 0.018 ohm." 

 

 

Alex, the interface box dumps the amplifier power into a huge array of resistors, in series with the headphones - talk about Green! 😁

 

https://6moons.com/audioreview_articles/raalrequisite/2/

 

[sandyk]

36 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Alex, the interface box dumps the amplifier power into a huge array of resistors, in series with the headphones - talk about Green! 😁

 

https://6moons.com/audioreview_articles/raalrequisite/2/

 

 5A RMS into 6  ohms is a lot of heat for Ribbons which only need 1/2W

 There is nothing Green about that !

At least it will be a purely resistive load for the amplifier.

[fas42]

Just being a bit sarcastic, Alex ... 😉.

[sandyk]

16 hours ago, fas42 said:

Just being a bit sarcastic, Alex ... 😉.

Frank

These headphones are intriguing, as they would appear to be far more accurate than Loudspeakers which often have marked impedance changes over the Audio bandwidth due in part to XOver networks . As many higher  powered Vacuum Tube amplifiers need to use Output Transformers to drive low impedance loads, it would appear that something like a 50W/Channel Class A amplifier which should have a natural warmth due to no crossover distortion , and a decent bandwidth, would be ideal, and with a much flatter extended frequency response than when using Output Transformers. This would appear to make them ideal for High Resolution music playback.

It's a shame that they are such a damn low impedance though.

 

I am not surprised that Chris loves them so much .

I am envious .

 

Alex

[The Computer Audiophile]

I've been connecting several DACs and preamps and even amps to the RAALs today and have noticed that many of them put out a ton of noise! Listen to a Reference Recordings track with fine details at very low levels and you'll hear what a component can do. It's like putting your ear up to your tweeter. Of course you can hear strange things sometimes, but who listens with an ear to a tweeter? We do now :~)

[ShawnC]

22 hours ago, sandyk said:

 it would appear that something like a 50W/Channel Class A amplifier which should have a natural warmth due to no crossover distortion , and a decent bandwidth, would be ideal, and with a much flatter extended frequency response than when using Output Transformers.

 

Alex

I'd be curious if anyone could get a hold of an old Krell amplifier like this, or a high powered one and try it out.

[sandyk]

53 minutes ago, ShawnC said:

I'd be curious if anyone could get a hold of an old Krell amplifier like this, or a high powered one and try it out.

 

 Better still,  a pair of 100W Nelson Pass Class A Monoblocks .

Perhaps a good test for typical Class D amplifiers too ?

[jcbenten]

1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I've been connecting several DACs and preamps and even amps to the RAALs today and have notices that many of them put out a ton of noise! Listen to a Reference Recordings track with fine details at very low levels and you'll heat what a component can do. It's like putting your ear up to your tweeter. Of course you can hear strange things sometimes, but who listens with an ear to a tweeter? We do now :~)

Be interesting to have those devices measured (or at least look at the specs).  Perhaps the RAALs are resolute enough to hear low-level noise/distortion.  Perhaps. 

 

Potential(?): 1) Incompatibility between the devices?  2) Are you training your ears to be ..ummmm..."Golden" :-) ....  Or at least sensitive?

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, jcbenten said:

Be interesting to have those devices measured (or at least look at the specs).  Perhaps the RAALs are resolute enough to hear low-level noise/distortion.  Perhaps. 

 

Potential(?): 1) Incompatibility between the devices?  2) Are you training your ears to be ..ummmm..."Golden" 🙂 ....  Or at least sensitive?

One device that was pretty noisy was from Benchmark, the company who is the darling of the objectivists. 

[jcbenten]

2 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

One device that was pretty noisy was from Benchmark, the company who is the darling of the objectivists. 

Now that is funny...

[cfisher]

Apparently, RAAL-requisite used the Benchmark AHB2 in their development of the SR1a. If there are specific tracks you come across that sound noisy, please post the titles. I would be interested in hearing them on my system.